Soulja Boy has launched his very own pair of video game consoles, including the new SouljaGame Console and SouljaGame Handheld on his official webstore souljawatch.com.
The “No Sleep” rapper, whose real name is DeAndre Cortez Way, is charging $199.99 for the SouljaGame Console, but you can snag one on sale for $149.99 right now. Meanwhile, the SouljaGame Handheld is $149.99 but is on sale for $99.99.
According to GameRevolution, the console includes “800 built-in games, an HDMI cable, a connector for older televisions and a USB power cable.” The handheld features 3,000 games both with access to PlayStation, PC, SEGA, NeoGeo, Game Boy Advance and NES Games, GameRevolution reports.
Soulja posted on Twitter early Thursday morning claiming that he’d already made $250,000 from the game console sales, in less than 24 hours since the console was released, and thanked his fans for their support.
“To the first person that purchased my console you just brought tears to my eyes. Tears of joy! Thank you so much for your support I promise to continue my tech company and evolve it in the gaming world. I’m just a kid with a dream,” the rapper also tweeted.
Soulja is even promising to send consoles and handhelds to those who want to review them for their gaming channels. He retweeted several posts of gamers asking to review the console and told them he’d be sending them out today.
However, several gaming outlets are claiming that Soulja’s line is a scam, calling them “cheap emulation boxes” that gamers can actually buy cheaper if they were to go straight to the manufacturer.
Nintendo Life writes that Soulja Boy “is basically selling a pair of cheap Chinese gaming machines and is passing them off as his own unique vision.” Nintendo Life also states that the company – a Chinese firm called Anbernic – sells basically the same consoles from between $60 to $90. According to Polygon, the console appears to actually be Anbernic’s “retro mini video game console,” while the handheld is identical to the “2018 portable video handheld game console.”
Polygon insists that the rapper is actually selling bootleg emulators and reselling them as his own. “There’s no denying that the SouljaGame console and handheld are not worth breaking out into the ‘Crank That’ dance for,” the article writes. Both consoles also claim to have 800-3000 built-in games, but there is no available list of the games included, nor does it say if the games are officially licensed.
Despite the negative reviews, judging by the reaction of Soulja Boy’s fans, it doesn’t look like too many people care about the possibility of the the game consoles being cheap, bootleg emulators. The fan response to the SouljaGame Console and SouljaGame Handheld has so far been positive, with hundreds of users posting that they “must own one of these.”
Soulja Boy’s website SouljaWatch also sells other tech products like smartwatches, wireless earbuds, over-the-ear headphones and even a “Soulja-branded” smartphone.
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Soulja Boy Launches His Own Video Game Console